Murdered son of Muammar Gaddafi was perceived as a threat to Libya’s elite

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, shot dead on Tuesday, appealed to ‘a nostalgia for a past that is remembered as more secure’

The assassination of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the second son of Libya’s late dictator Muammar Gaddafi, is a reminder of both how violent Libya remains more than 15 years after his father’s demise – and how much Saif had come to be perceived as a threat to Libya’s governing elite.

The loyalist Gaddafi green movement remained a potent gathering point for some Libyans nostalgic for a return to imagined past security that Saif’s father symbolised.

Gaddafi, 53, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen who stormed his house in Zintan on Tuesday. His political office quickly demanded an impartial inquiry into his death, casting doubt on the ability of the UN-backed government based in Tripoli to mount such an investigation.

The Tripoli-based prime minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, holds on to power even though a UN-led process in 2021 had only intended to install him as an interim leader pending new elections that never happened.